Graham Thom

ON FRIDAY I returned home after four days on Nauru as an independent assessor of conditions for asylum seekers wishing to come to Australia. I find it difficult to understand why nearly 400 asylum seekers have been sent there, ostensibly in the name of saving lives. The men we met at the Nauru Top Side Camp certainly couldn't understand why they had ended up on a rocky outcrop in the middle of the jungle, in a country they had never heard of. They were distressed and the conditions were already taking their toll.

For people seeking our protection, the accommodation is totally inappropriate. There were 14 men sharing the large tents, and five in smaller tents where there was little room inside to do anything but attempt sleep. The oppressive heat and humidity made staying in the tents during the day impossible. When it rained, tents leaked, forcing men to sleep on soaking beds. They showed us painful skin conditions caused by the heat and damp. On average 85 people a day visit the medical facility.

Outside the tents the rocky ground exacerbated the heat. With little shade, the men hung around the camp perimeter where the encroaching jungle provided some relief. If or when construction of a permanent processing centre begins, it will be just metres from their tents, claiming more of the little open space they now have to move around in. The noise and the dust created from construction, added to that from the nearby phosphate mining, will be horrific.

Considerable money has been spent getting the camp ready since the Australian government's September decision to send asylum seekers to Nauru for offshore processing. While the medical centre and basic offices were in place, the ''appropriate accommodation'' as outlined in the independent expert panel report could not be completed in time. That's why these men are living in tents. And problems remain with building permanent structures on Nauru for visa processing, due to the complexity for the government of trying to lease land from the local landowners.

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Plans to allow freedom of movement for those on the island, another prerequisite from the expert panel headed by former Defence chief Angus Houston, have also been complicated. While in theory the detainees are allowed out of the camp between 7am and 7pm, they must be monitored at all times. There is simply no privacy for them anywhere; nowhere to get a moment's peace or to grieve for a family member recently killed. They told us: ''We came seeking safety, we are not criminals, why are we being treated like criminals?'' Both the expert panel and the Nauruan government said these men should be leading as normal a life as possible. Yet this is a far cry from a normal life.

The Nauru Top Side Camp is in the middle of the island, surrounded by jungle and phosphate mining; to leave, the men must be taken by bus. This places further restrictions on their freedom of movement.

Remember, these are people who came to Australia seeking our protection. A question we were asked repeatedly was: ''When will my processing begin?'' While it is now clear this will be done under Nauruan law, it is also clear Nauru does not have the capacity. Specialists will need to be hired and accommodation will need to be found. With only two hotels on Nauru, accommodation is a problem for everyone. Most of the staff are sharing tents or hotel rooms, making working conditions far from ideal when dealing with highly distressed people. Experience has shown us that improvements will take time - and the longer it takes, the greater the sense of injustice.

We still don't have answers to some fundamental questions. Why were these men taken to Nauru before appropriate accommodation had been built, before leases had been granted by local landowners, before processing arrangements had been finalised, before staff were hired and accommodation found, and before the visa conditions allowing freedom of movement had been put in place?

Negotiations with the Nauruan government on several issues are continuing. But the decision to send vulnerable men to Nauru without finalising such basic, fundamental issues is not only extraordinarily ill-conceived but cruel.

Detainees said to us: ''What is the point of keeping us here when everyone else will be processed in Australia. It doesn't make sense. What have we done. Why us?''

I agree that it makes no sense at all. The damage we are causing to their physical and mental health is already apparent. History has shown that most will be found to be refugees. While Australian taxpayers foot the bill to keep them hostage on Nauru in the vain hope it will send a signal to others fleeing war and violence not to come, ultimately, after up to five years of living in squalor, they will be brought here, broken. They are then expected to rebuild their lives. Lives we have wasted.

Offshore processing will only serve to break vulnerable people who have fled unimaginable circumstances. These individuals should be processed in Australia, in accordance with our international obligations. It is time the Australian government stops playing politics with the lives of these men. They deserve better.

162 comments

I agree that these people are being held hostage on Nauru. We indulge in state sanctioned kidnap and hostage taking. The ALP opposed this when in Opposition but power corrupts and no-one has more power in Australia than the Immigration Minister. No other person can detain people without charge and without trial. Our policy is to make people accept the persecution they already haver rather than face the persecution we offer them.

We continue the Howard policy of unilateral revocation of the right to flee from persecution.

History will deal Abbott and Gillard the same black report cards that it dealt Howard and should have dealt Beasley.

Commenter

Ross

Location

MALLABULA

Date and time

November 26, 2012, 4:46AM

Ross this may be your summary of events but where is your solution or alternative that will be accepted by the majority of paying Austrtalians. Dr Thom also is short on solutions, big on drama. What you guys and the Greens fail to see is that the majority of voters want Australians in need of assistance looked after before these illegal arrivals..And if these freeloaders don't like the conditions in detention, and the current Government leglisation they can catch the next free flight elsewhere.

Commenter

Say It Again

Location

Vermont Sth

Date and time

November 26, 2012, 5:33AM

If you really want Australians in need to be treated the same way as we treat asylum seekers, then lock them up indefinitely in concentration camps and take away their right to work if we can't build enough camps to accommodate them.

For Australians in need I happily pay taxes that provide them with health care, living expenses, rent assistance, subisdised rates and car rego and many other benefits. Are you seriously arguing that the trickle of asylum seekers that we get are preventing us from providing social security to our residents? If you are conned by that argument, no wonder you can be induced to persecute asylum seekers.

There is no asylum seeker problem, We don't need a draconian solution for anything that is not a problem.

And therein lies the rub. We would rather persecute the weak than blame ourselves for our own inabilities. Asylum seekers are not in power so why blwme them for our own policy failings?

Commenter

Ross

Location

MALLABULA

Date and time

November 26, 2012, 6:08AM

Yes, Dr Thom and his ilk are short on workable alternatives - and the biggest thing they ignore is finding solutions for the reason why asylum seekers leave their countries in the first place. Having said that, when they do arrive on our shores (or processing sites), it goes without saying they still need to be treated with respect and humanely.

Commenter

thor

Date and time

November 26, 2012, 6:13AM

Say It Again - you need to be told it again. It is NOT illegal to arrive on the shores of another country and seek asylum.

Once you have revised your argument to include that fact, you can then consider the morality of borders in the first place. What gives you the moral right to more resources than any other human being?

Commenter

HiLo

Date and time

November 26, 2012, 6:38AM

The solution is very simple:

Process asylum seekers in Australia, and provide a safe ferry service for them to get here.

There can be no objections to this, as the proponents of the Pacific Solution have always claimed that their solution was to save lives, not to stop genuine refugees from getting to Australia?

Commenter

Gordon Rouse

Location

Yinnar South

Date and time

November 26, 2012, 6:39AM

The solution is simple, don't come by boat.

Commenter

James

Date and time

November 26, 2012, 6:42AM

It's not meant to be a holiday. The amenities are meant to be a deterrent. Feel so strongly about it Mr Journalist? Open your house and let 40 or 50 live there. Feed them, wash them cloth them and let them have your job. Suddenly reality hits.

Commenter

Jode

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

November 26, 2012, 6:43AM

Say it again - Dr Thom may be short of solutions, but surely the message is that the current solutions do not work.

Julia and Tony say that we are being cruel to be kind. Our cruelty is not achieving kindness, but only cruelty. In reality we are being cruel to be cruel.

If our cruelty is only achieving cruelty, only an idiot or a sadist would continue that cruelty. On the information we now have, there is no excuse for anyone to continue to do what is not working, what is a breach of human rights, and what is costing us billions when humane solutions would only cost us millions.

Commenter

Ross

Location

MALLABULA

Date and time

November 26, 2012, 6:43AM

'@Say it again - trouble with this offshore policy espoused for so long by the coalition and now embraced by Labor in the race to the bottom is that it's not even working to dter asylum seekers coming by boat. So what alternative do you suggest yourself, or do you support just locking them up in their thousands?